Harris County Special Assistant Attorney Douglas Ray told Houston Matters this week that the original list the county received had 29,822 names.

The number of names decreased to 11,555 after following instructions from the Secretary of State to remove people who had registered at the Department of Public Safety, presented evidence of citizenship, or had registered to vote at a naturalization ceremony.

At that point, county officials conducted an audit of 150 randomly picked names and “of those 150 names, we were able to affirmatively confirm that 51 of them were American citizens,” Ray told News 88.7 on Friday.

The county has now suspended its review of the list indefinitely.

Three lawsuits have been filed against the Texas Secretary of State over the statewide list, which some have categorized as an attempt to purge the voter rolls.

The lawsuits allege that people on the list are being unfairly and illegally targeted in violation of the Voting Rights Act and the Constitution.

“The most prudent thing for us to do at that point is to stop our review of the list all together and to wait for the outcome of the litigation,” Ray said.

Harris County didn’t send any notices to challenge the voter eligibility of the individuals on the list. But other counties, such as Galveston, did send notices and have been sued.

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Alvaro ‘Al’ Ortiz

General Assignment Reporter

Alvaro 'Al' Ortiz is originally from Spain. He worked for several years in his home country and gained experience in all platforms of journalism, from wire services to print, as well as broadcast news and digital reporting. In 2001, Al came to the United States to pursue a Master's degree...